MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st July, 2020) US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that although the US Department of Defense has no evidence to validate allegations about the Russian personnel's malign activity against US forces in Afghanistan, he would like to assure his service members that the Defense Department takes seriously all potential threats.
"Although the Department of Defense has no corroborating evidence at this time to validate the recent allegations regarding malign activity by Russian personnel against US forces in Afghanistan, I want to assure all of our service members that the Department takes very seriously any and all potential threats against U.S. military personnel," Esper said in a statement posted on Twitter.
"Further, the chain of command and I are fully committed to ensuring American forces in the field have the best intelligence, weapons, equipment, protective gear, tactics and all necessary authorities to deal with any threats they might face in order to ensure their safety and mission success," he said.
On Friday, the New York Times ran an article citing unnamed intelligence officials as saying that President Donald Trump had been presented with an intelligence report claiming Russia could have paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to assassinate US troops in Afghanistan.
Chief Pentagon Spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said earlier the Pentagon had no corroborating evidence to validate allegations about the Russia-Taliban collusion.
